A federal judge yesterday tossed out lawsuits by families of high-earning Sept. 11 victims who claimed the compensation fund’s special master, Kenneth Feinberg, was “short-changing” them by capping payouts at $6 million.

Judge Alvin Hellerstein ruled that Feinberg’s policies in setting awards were “reasonable and proper” and pointed out Congress had given him “considerable discretion.”

The families of 10 people killed at the World Trade Center filed three separate lawsuits in Manhattan federal court.

They claimed Feinberg was acting in an “arbitrary and capricious” manner by failing to fairly compensate victims who were among America’s highest 2 percent of income earners.

At a hearing, lawyers for the families claimed the special master backed away from his own confidential study that predicted payouts of as much as $24.5 million by imposing a de facto cap of about $6 million.

But Hellerstein said in his 43-page ruling that Congress invested the Department of Justice and the special master with discretion to decide how to account for “individual circumstances.”

He said the fund had been set up to provide “some measure of recompense for the irreparable loss of the thousands who died and were injured.”

It was not meant to replicate damages that may be awarded by courts in wrongful-death actions, he said.